The invention generally relates to an animation technique.
For purposes of producing a computer-generated animation of a real world object, typically, several photographs of the object must be taken. These photographs, in turn, are converted into digital images that a computer displays in successive frames to create the appearance that the object is moving or rotating. Thus, to simulate the rotation of the object about a particular axis, several photographs of the object may be taken (by a digital camera, for example) from various positions about the axis of rotation to create several corresponding digital images. The computer may individually display the images in successive frames to create the appearance that the object is rotating.
The above-described animation technique typically requires a large amount of data. For example, each digital image of the object may require approximately one hundred. kilobytes of data that describes the various pixel intensities of the image. Therefore, if the computer displays ten images to animate rotation of a particular object, approximately one megabyte of data (one thousand kilobytes) may be required. Unfortunately, this large amount of data consumes a considerable amount of bandwidth when communicated across a network, such as the Internet, for example. The need for a large bandwidth, in turn, restricts a web site""s ability to use the animation, as the large bandwidth requirement may limit the speed at which the animation may be accessed by a client of the web site.
Thus, there is a continuing need for an animation technique that addresses one or more of the problems that are stated above.
In an embodiment of the invention, a method for producing an animation of an object includes displaying the object on a display of a computer system. A perspective system that has a predefined relationship with the object is created on the display. The perspective system defines different planes, and different portions of the object are associated with the different planes. Each of these different portions is stored as a different image file. The perspective system is rotated about the object for purposes of establishing different frames of the animation. For each frame, the different portions of the object are manipulated to reorient the object to establish the predefined relationship with the rotated perspective system. For each frame, script is created describing the manipulation of the different portions of the object.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description drawing and claims.